The formation of mondisperse copper nanoparticles remains a challenge. Chemical reduction methods in solution and in reverse micelles have provided inadequate results providing particles having irregular shapes and/or wide size distributions. A recent example utilizing a hypophosphite reducing system in the presence of polyvinlypyrrolidone (PVP) has provided monodisperse particles of relatively large sizes, between about 30-65 nm. A thermal CVD route to copper nanoparticles by decomposition of Cu[OCH(Me)CH2NMe2] has provided smaller nanoparticles on the order of 7.5 nm, but is not conducive to scale up and has not demonstrated access to even smaller particles. It would be beneficial to provide new scalable, cost-effective methods for the production of monodisperse copper nanoparticles having small effective diameters. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.